


White Dog Whiskey

by Corycides



Series: Miles Matheson Appreciation Week [2]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 17:37:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles drank whisky for the dead.</p><p>That was the thing about murdering your friends, you gave up the right to weep when they died. When you were the one that had put the bullet in their brain. Or gave the order and walked away, like that was any cleaner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Dog Whiskey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dragomir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragomir/gifts).



He drank whisky for the dead. 

That was the thing about murdering your friends, you gave up the right to weep when they died. When you were the one that had put the bullet in their brain. Or gave the order and walked away, like that was any cleaner.

Miles had been glad it hadn’t been him to kill Jeremy. He couldn’t understand why Bass would.

‘ _Loyal as a dog,’ Jim had said, when they were planning their ill-fated coup. ‘No point in even asking.’_

He’d said it like it was a character flaw. Maybe if Miles had remembered that, there would be a few less people dead. Although only a few, negligible in the grand scheme of his murders.

Either way, too late for Jeremy. So Miles drank until he didn’t feel anything and went on with the war and the rescue and now...this. Retreat. Refuge. Running away.

Charlie rode next to him, not Rachel, quiet and drooping with the sort of hopelessness he recognised. What was the point, you had to wonder, when the shit storm just kept getting worse? Not that she really understood the magnitude of it. Not yet.

She knew what nukes were - they’d talked about that when Bass had gone full-on Bond villain and tried to irradiate Georgia - but she’d not seen the pictures from Hiroshima, she’d not seen the SF dioramas of movie dystopias. Bombs, she said when she talked about it. Like it was one of Nora’s jury-rigged bundles of nitro - a little death and a little property damage and then you’re all good.

It wasn’t until they hit Kansas that they saw the refugee camps. The Plains Nation was even more covered in shit than the Republic, there wasn’t anything to spare. The ones who weren’t dying of radiation poisoning were starving. Charlie wanted to give them all their rations. When he wouldn’t let her, ripping them back of sore-pocked hands, she started riding on her own.

Once they were sure there was nothing left on the East Coast, they went north - towards Canada. Rachel tried to kill herself in Buffalo, bleeding bright, red bubbles onto the frosty streets.

‘The refugee camp has a doctor,’ someone told them, sympathetically. Canada was better off than the Plains, rich enough to help even if they weren’t letting the sick and desperate spill over the border. ‘He’ll get you settled.’

He had to carry her, Charlie grimly holding the bandages around her arm.

The medic was a scrawny little man with receeding hair and the piss-hole in the snow pupils of a serious used, but he took in the situation at a glance and got Rachel on a bed. His chatter was quick and reassuring, pitching up in sophistication as Rachel snipped with groggy irritation at being talked down to.

‘I’ll treat her,’ the doctor said over his shoulder. ‘If you want to stay, you’ll need a chit from the Major.’

Of course. Miles took a second to slump against his horse, pressing his forehead against its sweaty hot shoulder. So what would it be? Someone who hated him to hang this over his head? Someone who thought he could use the Matheson Monster to his own ends? Fuck, with his luck - he pushed himself upright wearily - it would probably be that ass-lick Neville. Technically the territory was in the Republic - although it was mostly just a skin of respectability over Garfield’s succession from the Royal Canadian Principality. 

The Major was apparently with the Moose. People said that like he should know what they meant. Miles clenched his jaw against annoyance and triangulated by the vaguely pointed fingers. It was - it turned out - an actual moose.

‘Fuck me,’ Miles muttered. It wasn’t the huge, gangling creature - half-grown and all nose and legs - that had him staring. It was the huge, gangling creature scratching its ears that shocked the wind out of him. The uniform was dull scarlet instead of olive green, but it still looked like a sack tied in the middle with a leather belt. 

‘Jeremy?’

He was expecting to be disappointed. Life - his life - rarely delivered pleasant surprises. The man would turn around and be a different six foot three, tow-headed lunk of scruff. Someone he didn’t know. Someone he couldn’t trust.

Except it was.

‘Miles,’ Jeremy said, mouth twisting with an expressive lack of enthusiasm. ‘Figured you’d head for California.’

‘Last word from Affleck was he wanted my balls on a plate,’ Miles said. He felt an almost irresistible urge to hug the other man, but managed to resist it. ‘I figured you were rotting in a shallow grave.’

Jeremy shoved his hands in his pockets and slouched back against the pen. The baby moose lipped at his collar, trailing slobber down his collar. He shrugged.

‘Monroe delegated,’ he said. The moose snorted and headbutted Jeremy’s shoulder. ‘That’s always a mistake...’ He hesitated, rubbing his thumb over his mouth.  ‘Where is he?’’

‘Don’t know. Alive.’

Jeremy sighed, looking relieved despite himself.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I guess.’

Miles still wanted to hug him. Fuck it. At this point, who was he trying to impress? He stepped forwards and grabbed Jeremy, dragging him down into a one-armed, back-thumping hug.

‘Shit, you ugly bastard,’ he said. ‘I never thought I’d be this glad to see you.’

He hung on longer than he probably should. It was stupid. Last time he’d seen Jeremy, _he’d_ been trying to kill him. It was just...everything else was gone. Everyone he knew, the militia, the Republic, the Rebels - even Independance Hall. Even his bar.

Every last scrap of thing he’d built over the last 15 years was radioactive slag. 

Jeremy was the last thing standing, just like he’d been the start of it all.

He let go finally and stepped back, scratching his head. ‘You got something to drink?’

The something vodka-clear rye whiskey, sweet and pucker-dry on the tongue. Miles wasn’t entirely sure he approved, but he’d drunk a helluva lot worse. Besides, it was free.

He slouched on a folding chair, legs sprawled out until his muddy, worn to the uppers boots kicked against Jeremy’s more-or-less polished ones. A chit letting them stay a week had been sent to the infirmary and Jeremy was shrugging his way through being smuggled out of Philadelphia. 

‘...so I ran, up here,’ Jeremy said. ‘Me and Garfield always got on well. Used to anyhow. Bastard wouldn’t like me be a captain. Said I had to be a major.’

‘Asshole,’ Miles said accommodatingly, refilling his glass.

‘Hey, that’s my commanding officer you’re talking about,’ Jeremy said, pointing the glass at him. ‘Show a bit of respect.’

‘You called me worse.’

‘You were a drunk who ran out on us,’ Jeremy said, tipping his head back to finish his shot. ‘And after all the tripe you fed me about loyalty and making a better world for our people.’

‘Bass had gone too far.’

Jeremy was still staring at the ceiling. He snorted. ‘Yeah, and running out on him clearly reined him in, didn’t it?’

‘I couldn’t kill him.’

‘You could have stopped him.’

Yeah. Miles supposed he could. They sat in silence for a while, drinking raw whiskey with a certain grim determination. Jeremy had never been a maudlin drunk though. He shrugged the mood off and leaned forwards, bracing his elbows on his knees.

‘Did you see my moose?’

‘Yeah. Couldn’t miss it.’

‘Know what it’s name is?’

‘Moose?’

‘Monroe,’ Jeremy said, grinning that goofy, impossibly infectious grin. Looking at him snorting to himself over his own joke, it was hard to believe he’d killed - slaughtered - people. ‘Monroe the Moose.’

‘Why.’

‘It likes its booze,’ Jeremy said sagely. ‘That’s how I got it. I got drunk and decided I was going to _Danny the Champion of the World_ me some riding moose - cos the singlular moose is the same as the plural, it’s not meeses - but turns out that’s a really bad idea. Nearly as bad as war rhinos.’

Miles closed his eyes at the memory. It had never gotten to the point of war rhinos, in chain mail and with machine guns mounted on their heads, rampaging through the streets, but Jeremy had been so enthusiastic Miles’ had almost been able to see it. And it had been a disaster.

‘Nothing could be as bad as war rhinos,’ he assured Jeremy. 

They chuckled their way through the rest of the bottle, down to dregs before Miles asked the question that had been poking at him for the last year.

‘Why are you here?’ he asked. ‘After what Monroe did, what do you care about the Republic?

Jeremy looked at him like it was a stupid question. 

‘You know, you’re an asshole sometimes,’ he said. ‘You went to war with us, you sold out to Georgia, and you don’t give a shit about the Republic do you? It was all just some dick-measuring contest between you and Monroe.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Miles protested, scowling. ‘I was fighting for the people, with the people.’

Jeremy tried to refill his glass, pouting when only a dribble eked out of the bottle.

‘The Rebellion was funded, instigated, by the Plains Nation,’ he said. ‘The war was fought with Georgian soldiers. Moose balls it was for the people of the Republic. You know how many farmlands you stripped, Miles? How many refugees from _you_ we had to deal with in Philly? Well, screw you. I care. I care 15 years worth of my life spent trying to make a better world for the baker, tinker and tailor to live in. I’m not just going to let them starve now.’

Miles wanted to argue. He couldn’t - but that was probably just the whisky. 

  
  
  



End file.
